Some Place That Isn't Burning
by pinkolifant
Summary: Written for the fest 2015 in sandorxsansa community on Livejournal. The prompt belongs to redcandle17: Groundhog day, Sandor relives the day of the Blackwater Battle over and over again, book style.
1. One

Written for the fest 2015 in sandorxsansa community on Livejournal. The prompt belongs to redcandle17: Groundhog day, Sandor relives the day of the Blackwater Battle over and over again, book style.

Thank you so much to TopShelfCrazy for beta reading this small story. I will never be able to thank you enough.

 **One**

"Get up, Hound!" the toad with stripes painted on him bellowed from behind the barred door of his chamber. "Stannis won't wait."

"Go bugger yourself with a hot poker, Blount!" Sandor Clegane found his rasping growl before being able to open either of his eyes. His head was pounding. _Too much wine._

A flagon of Dornish sour always lay on his bedside table. He grabbed it, removed the cork with his teeth, spat it on the floor and emptied the contents. By the time he was done, he could open both eyes and sit straight on his bed. His head was almost clear.

Armed and ready, he went to the Throne Room. Outside the windows, the world was still dark.

They dressed the boy king in shiny armour and he appeared… concerned _._ Joff let the Imp give orders, though he normally hated his dwarf uncle as much or more than the Hound did.

 _So Stannis will be coming today in truth._ Sandor's blood ran faster, expecting the joy of the battle. He would fight, kill, die, maybe… Much better than see a girl beaten, close his eyes and get drunk as a dog every time.

He was ordered to hold the King's Gate. The rest of the day was spent waiting. The city bells tolled and wailed; human lambs to be butchered herded to the sept. Commoners rioted in Flea Bottom, and the city remained closed. No one was to go in or out until the battle.

The garrison Sandor commanded was a merry mixture of sellswords and gold cloaks. Men were nervous and eager for the fighting to start. At midday, a bowl of brown was served. The Hound skipped the meal. He never had a taste for broth. Instead, he downed two large flagons of ale which came with the food, wishing it was wine.

He wondered if Joffrey's betrothed went to the sept as well. Or if she was prowling the godswood to pray for Joff's death, until some bigger monster than him found her and took her for his own. The castle was brimming with them, and most had prettier faces than the Hound's. Maybe one of the Kettleblacks… The mere thought enraged him, and he watered it down with more ale.

At sunset, rumours spread like mad. Stannis' fleet was sailing up the Blackwater… The Hound could not see anything from behind the gates. The wait became tense. His men were growing restless. They all needed to kill someone soon, so as not to start hammering at each other.

Finally, some archers crossed the river.

The Hound settled in the familiar routine; form, lead out, attack. He didn't keep count of the men he hewed in two with his greatsword. "Fall back," he shouted when his company became too scattered, and led the men back in, to regroup behind the gates.

"The Imp is lifting his chain," a gold cloak whispered.

The sound of thunder broke the night in two. Green clouds assailed the skies and men could be heard screaming in the distance.

"The Imp released some devilry," a sellsword rejoiced. The Hound sniffed the air and was hesitant. It began to stink like _smoke_.

The stench of _burning_ increased tenfold by the time the enemy was at the door again.

The second sortie was different. The green clouds _were_ flames and they were coming closer. Tongues of fire _danced_ on the clothing of a man the Hound killed, and he thought he saw _gratitude_ in the wild, white eyes of another of his victims. His resolve was still holding, though he had lost more men this time.

The third time… The sky exploded over his head. The enemy was crossing the river using a mass of burned ships as a bridge. Half of the ships and the people were on fire… His men were falling around him like flies...

A realisation dawned on him. On the next sortie they would all die… Not only die… By the looks of it they would _burn_ …

The notion he'd burn again made him sick in his head. Once was enough. No liege lord could ask him to do this. His guts constricted against his will. Fear overwhelmed him, disarmed him, defeated him. He was six again and he needed to cry. With the last ounce of consciousness, he sounded the retreat. Behind the false safety of the gates, he hid in the shadow of a wall and was unable to calm down his own breathing, ragged and erratic. He gulped for air and it tasted like fire. Thirst became unbearable.

The enemy brought a ram to the door. He should do something, but all he could think was that he gave a rat's arse about it.

The _Imp_ came to order him and his men _out_ again. The Hound slammed his dented helm on the ground.

"No," he said roughly.

One of the steel dog's ears was almost gone. _Just like my own,_ he thought. They should let the enemy in and kill them there.

A talkative sellsword tried to reason the same with the dwarf, but the little man wouldn't hear it. He offered them… _a bowl of raspberries?_

Sandor shouted for a drink, and instead of wine they gave him _water_. He spat out the foul liquid. The Imp said he'd _lead_ the sortie…

"You?" the Hound asked incredulously. He should have killed the little gargoyle years ago, when the dwarf amused himself first by marrying a whore and then by sharing her with his guards.

 _His_ men now followed the little abomination… _Bugger all that… If the gods are good, he will burn,_ the Hound thought and walked away from the battle, in search of wine.

He stumbled back through the streets of the dying, burning city. Entering a tavern, or two, or more, he'd soon lost count, he took with him as many flagons of wine as he could carry. He drank as he went, disposed of the empty flagons, and took some more; and yet it was not enough. He could still feel the burning on his skin. His eyes widened in nameless fear. They must have been white as those of that man he killed by now, he realised. He thought he entered the castle, but it could have been another inn for all he cared.

The world was spinning.

There were spiral stairs revolving around him and then, there was a door.

The door was not barred and it should have been. He was both glad and angry for it, not knowing why. Inside, he staggered to the window. The shutters gaped open. Out there, the world was a growing tide of flames, galloping at him, threatening to engulf him... He rapidly closed the curtains.

Behind, there was a featherbed, smelling sweet, of roses, and something else. He crawled into it in his armour. He realised he was expecting someone to come to him there, but he couldn't remember who it was. Soon, nothing mattered. This, this was the oblivion. He buried his bleeding face into the sheets. It was the first time he noticed he had a _gash_ on his forehead. It didn't matter. _Nothing_ mattered. This was what he wanted. The sweet scent of peace…

He drifted to sleep.

Darkness stirred. A tall shadow _barred_ the door, and spread the bloody curtains. Angry clouds of colourful flames made him further awake; green and yellow, red and orange. The stench and the fear returned. After some sleep, so did his vision and at least one part of his wits, numbed by wine.

The girl whimpered at the sight of all the burning.

"Lady…" she whispered, retreating to the safety of her bed.

 _I went to the little bird's room,_ he realised, cold sweat beading under his armour.

 _I came here to wait for her. Why?_

When she was in her bed with him, a panicked thought came to mind; ladies screamed. He would be found as a deserter in the castle. On an instinct, he grabbed her wrist with one hand and clamped her mouth with the other, just not hard enough to make her suffocate.

 _I knew you'd come._ He told her so, and was glad for it, before warning her he'd kill her if she made a sound.

She was very nervous, yet she stayed quiet, saving him the discovery whether he could kill her or not. He believed he could not, but the truth of the matter was far from certain. He took a good swig from the flagon of wine he'd left at her bedside table before he'd fallen asleep.

The dog's place was in the battle, but he _left. The buggering dwarf_ took the lead. Shame spread through his waking being. _I am weak._ He heard himself prattle about losing everything. And he did… Who would fear him now? Who would ever believe him strong?

She wrenched him away from his self-pity by asking why he came. Her voice was laced with apprehension and worry. _Why indeed?_ He looked at her, always so damn pretty in her fear. It would be so easy to take what he had wanted since the feast after the Hand's Tourney. Wickedly, he complained he never got his song.

She parried his complaint. He was frightening her and he should let her go.

 _Everything always frightens you._ He told her as much and yelled at her to _look at him_ … consumed by the desire she should see he was more than his scars and the reek of blood on his face and his armour… he was a man… he could be a good man to her…

He blurted he could keep her safe. No one would hurt her again, or he'd kill them. He'd not have to drink much more than usual to numb the knowledge; _gallant_ knights beat her and he did _nothing._ Everything seemed so simple at that moment in his drunken mind. _Come with me,_ he thought, but he'd never said it.

She looked at him with _expectation._ Quaint _interest_ blossomed shyly under her palpable fear _._ That part was always the worst with her.

It unsettled him every time... when they met by chance in the castle at night, both seemingly unable to sleep, and when they ended up _talking_ in earnest. He was regularly drunk and mocked her. Once he held his sword at her throat. Yet the conversation always strayed to moments when they had honestly talked to each other. He would fool himself and think she had some genuine _consideration_ for him. It always spurred his desire for her.

On an impulse, he yanked her closer, and stared at her pretty mouth. Women he could have rarely required kissing. But a noble lady like her would like to be kissed in the beginning, wouldn't she?

The wine and his blood talked in unison, suggesting images of the abandon of flesh. He could smell plum wine on her, so unbearably sweet…

Until…

Sansa closed her eyes.

And Sandor was aware of himself again; so much older than her, ugly and bitter. She would never want him as her lover, despite talking to him at times as if he were a man, and not a dog.

 _Best kill her and be done with it,_ he tried to reason with himself in his usual way, though the resolve in the matter escaped him, just as all his courage did when faced with the inferno of flames. _If you don't, someone else will._

The battle was well and truly lost. He didn't see how it could be swayed in favour of the bastard king. In the chaos that would follow before Stannis in person walked to Maegor's Holdfast, some looting soldier from _any_ of the armies would find Sansa in her room and probably do for her after raping her first.

So he asked her to sing for her little life, the song of Florian and his cunt. He pressed his dagger at her tiny throat, building up a decision to bring her life to the end. _It would be a mercy,_ he tried to convince himself.

Her song was not the one he wanted, nor the stupid one he asked for. It was a weak chant of the faith imploring the Mother's mercy... For men, suffering in war…

The words of it brought him back to the King's Gate, to the pleas of the wounded, who screamed worse than their horses, dying… mercy… He hoped there was mercy for them. He deserved none.

When Sansa was done singing, Sandor saw himself far too clearly in his mind's eye. He was a _monster_. What kind of man pulled a dagger on a frightened girl, barely flowered, and pondered whether to rape her or kill her, just because she caught him _sleeping_ from drunkenness in her bed?

Very carefully, he took the blade from her throat, never speaking.

Tears sprang forward, unwanted and unbidden, mingling with the blood from the wound on his face. Suddenly, her hand was on his scars, caressing both tears and blood away…

 _She feels for my pain… Just like after the tourney._

He realised this was why he came to her bed, to forget his fear and his cowardice, and to receive the unjudging comfort of a woman…

"Little bird," he murmured

His badly contained love for her poured out of him in a single rasp.

S _he would never know,_ he decided on a whim.

Sansa was barely more than a girl, and yet she gave him what he needed, while he'd _never_ been able to do the same.

Painfully sober, at least in thought, if not yet in body, he stood up to leave.

Before the door, he realised he still had the bloody white cloak they gave him, the symbol of _knightly_ values… He hated the knights, but the Kingsguard white still had some meaning. The cloak used to be Barristan Selmy's. Even the Hound had to admit that Selmy and a few others before him _did_ protect the weak.

Unworthy of what the cloak represented, unworthy of Sansa, he ripped it and left it there. Whoever found her, would be a better man than he was.

He rushed out and hurried down the stairs and empty corridors to his own room. He took his tourney winnings and found his horse. He was out of Maegor's Holdfast before the fools guarding it ever had time to execute Cersei's command and lift the drawbridge. Soon, he was out of the city as well, through the Iron Gate…. Rosby road was quiet; fighting had never reached it. He easily overtook the few wretches who managed to escape the city on foot.

When he was far enough from everything, he left the road, tied his horse to a tree, collapsed under it, and retched. Stranger whinnied, protesting, wanting some treat after a harsh ride.

 _Shut up,_ Sandor thought, and fell fast asleep.


	2. Two

I will never be able to thank enough TopShelfCrazy for beta work on this little story )))) Thank you so much )))

Thank you for reading and to the first and only reviewer )))

 **Two**

He dreamt of Sansa's gentle hand on the ruin of his face…

"Get up, Hound!" the toad with stripes painted on him bellowed loudly, ruining his pretty dream of ladies and true knights. "Stannis won't wait."

"Go bugger yourself with a hot poker, Blount!" Sandor Clegane found his rasping growl before he was able to open either of his eyes. His head was pounding. _Too much wine._

He was commanding at the King's Gate with stomach full of wine and ale before he realised something was wrong. _The battle…_ he vaguely remembered it. _There will be burning… I will be burned again._ Apprehension paralysed him entirely after the first sortie. The sellsword whispered something about the chain being lifted. He realised he had heard it all before, and his fear kept growing. He had never been that afraid in his life. He felt like a fool with the gift of premonition.

The Hound never led the second sortie, never waited for the third one, nor for the dwarf to _shame_ him and take over his men. _How do I know the Imp should come?_ Sandor just told his men he was going to take a piss and never came back.

All taverns were his by rights. Contrary to his habits, he took and drank whatever he wanted without leaving any coin for it. The drunken haze took over. He blanked out. In some dark place, _was it a castle?_ he sank down next to a cold wall with a flagon of wine in each hand.

 _I will drink myself to death tonight,_ he thought and he would have done it.

A lady… screamed. He left his wine. He could barely walk up the stairs in his condition and it would be a miracle if he could hold a sword; yet he crept up on all fours as the dog he was, retching as he went. It almost felt as if he were _swimming_ up through the stench of wildfire, and the hold of wine over his brains. He had to do _something._ He'd never done anything before.

He came to a door which gaped open. _Broken down._ A man with a grey, lifeless, pockmarked face almost as ugly as Sandor was dragging a girl from under her bed. _Where have I seen him before?_ The girl screamed and squirmed as the man lifted a shiny greatsword high in the air above his head, and brought it down towards her neck.

The Hound growled and lurched forward with his own sword and the girl must have wrenched away at the same moment. Sandor's blade passed through the junction in armour between the man's waist and loins, driven by the force of his massive body. The strike was clumsy, but the surprise and strength worked in his favour. The point of the sword came out on the other side. The Hound pushed the ugly man away, not caring in the least for the messy way in which the bugger was going to die.

All his attention was for the girl and he had no idea who she was. She lay in the puddle of her own blood, gushing from one of her shoulder blades. The Hound staggered to her bed and methodically tore off a large piece of a sweet smelling blanket. More firmly than it was necessary, he pressed it on the girl's shoulder and put her other hand on it.

"Hold it!" he snarled at her. "Wait for me. Never let go!"

He sat on the first step. He almost _rolled_ back down the stairs, decided against it and chose to descend on his armoured arse instead. He'd never be able to _walk_ down in his condition without breaking his neck. _Where is that wine?_

All the torches were gone from the castle, which started to ring with the sounds of looting. _So the battle is lost._ Finally, he found the flagon. Walking up was easier.

There was a hearth in the girl's room. Long practice of doing the same for himself enabled him to heat the wine in his helm. He noticed one ear was scorched on it, just like his own. He told her to bite on his left hand as he poured boiled wine over her wound. She did as she was told. She never screamed, just whimpered as he somehow bandaged the wound. The cut was deep. Valyrian steel was not to be trifled with. He hoped she was not going to die. He carried her to her featherbed and he wanted to sleep…

As an afterthought, he returned to the man he killed, hauled him on his back and threw him down the stairs. _Best if they find him elsewhere._

Accomplished, he returned to the bed.

Compulsively, he took the girl into his arms. It wasn't enough. He let her go for a little while. He never thought he could remove his armour while being so drunk. Yet he did it, more by tearing it apart than by properly unclasping it.

He took the girl in his arms again. That was much better. She was very cold.

"Don't die, will you?" he asked of her.

"I never wanted to," she said in a weak voice. "I thought I did, when they killed my father, to shame all who betrayed me, but then I couldn't… couldn't…"

Her voice abandoned her.

He held her tighter, closer to his face. She didn't fight it. She didn't look at him either and that caused a dull ache in his soul. He was too drunk to be angry.

Then, one of her hands went to his bad cheek, cold as ice. This was what he always wanted, this was… He should tell her something. He wished he weren't drunk, but he was. Her hand was on his scars, tracing them. It was too good to be true. He forgot what he should tell her.

"Not a lord," she smiled tremulously at him, and closed her beautiful blue eyes.

He could barely hear her. Oblivion took him and his world turned black.


	3. Three

**Three**

Sansa's cold body disappeared from Sandor's arms when he heard the painted toad again, about to break down his door.

"Get up, Hound!" Blount yelled. "Stannis won't wait."

"Go bugger yourself with a hot poker!" the Hound's head was pounding. _Too much wine._ He nevertheless emptied the flagon on his bedside table. By the time he was done, he remembered two different dreams of that same day… One in which he seriously considered taking and murdering Sansa, and another in which Ser Ilyn Payne had done a better job about the killing part.

He looked at his left hand, searching for the traces of where she had bitten him when he treated her wound. There were none.

 _A stupid dream._

Heading to the throne room and to the King's Gate was entirely too familiar. The recollections of his dreams became very vivid and almost as horrifying as the _fire_ he knew was coming.

He concluded he needed to stay and fight _on._ It was the only way to avoid both of his dreams coming true. So when the Imp ordered him out for the fourth time, he swallowed his fear and his pride, slammed his dented helm back on his face and went.

The world was on fire.

He cut through flesh and through flames and he cried as he did that, just like when he was a little boy burning in Gregor's hands. His tears were warm inside his helm and he had to swallow them as well, lest they cloud his vision. He had no desire to be sent on a journey through seven hells by the hand of some less fearful bugger. The gash on his face hurt and he earned two more on his arms, on the weaker part of his armour.

"Renly, Renly!" voices began calling just when he could no longer endure. By then, he believed he would _drown_ in his fear. Clamour dragged him back to life.

Renly was dead and the dead could not come back to life. There was indeed a man with antlered helm and a banner with the golden _rose_ behind him _._ It could mean only one thing. Lord Tywin was coming to break the siege and he'd won the alliance of the Tyrells to defeat Stannis.

The Hound looked through his tears at all the burning. Most of his men were dead, dying or engaged in a fight. He was leading no one. He didn't know where the Imp was and he doubted he would be the Hand of the King much longer after the return of his father to the capital

He stumbled back to the gates. The few men who were not dying paid him no attention. The battle was losing breath. He ran back to the Red Keep. He had to know he was right. The battle was won and Cersei would _not_ send Ser Ilyn Payne after Sansa in her mindless revenge.

He entered into only one tavern on the way back and took two flagons of wine without paying for them. He made a mental note to pay on the morrow. He drank just enough to stop shaking, and not a drop more. His body became lighter, his tears dried.

He climbed the stairs leading to the little bird's room and heard the excited… male voice. She was not alone. With as much stealth as he could muster in his happy, inebriated condition, he approached the open door. It was the fool, Ser Dontos, telling her about the glory of the battle and the knights… the knights…. He chattered and she chirped some more…. He was too giddy to pay attention to what they were saying.

The Hound was strong again. He'd not let the ugly bugger fill the little bird's head with horseshit. He grabbed him by the collar and tossed him out. The fool scrambled down the stairs and never looked back.

"Did he bother you?" he asked Sansa.

Finding another man in his room with her, unattractive as he was, suddenly made him irascible.

 _Wait, it is her room, not mine,_ Sandor realised he had just thought of _her_ room as _his_.

"Or is he now your _true_ knight?" the Hound sneered.

"No, my lord," she stuttered and he could tell she was lying. A will to grasp her chin and force her to look at him began ravaging his soul.

Before he could act on it, she asked, "Why are you here?"

 _Because I think about you day and night._

Just like in that first dream, her fear was mounting. And this time, seeing her afraid quenched, rather than stirred his anger.

"I never had my song," he complained weakly, keeping his hands to himself.

She didn't say he frightened her this time. "Florian and Jonquil," she offered it freely.

"Bugger the fool and his cunt," he barked back. Sometimes anything she said angered him, for no reason at all.

Dead tired, he told her about his weakness, or as much as he could. "I want to sleep in your bed. Just this once. I don't expect you to be in it, but, truth be told, I'd love it if you were. I need to sleep."

He cantered past her and lay on her bed in full armour. Greatsword bothered him on his back, so he put it under the bed, his sword and his dagger, both. Sprawled between her sheets, he breathed in her scent. Then, he was at peace, just like that first night… Wine could never give him that.

Only this time, he didn't leave the battle.

He could sleep now, and on the next day, everything would be the same as the day before. He would be the dog, and she the king's betrothed, to be beaten at will.

The oblivion was almost there when the mattress sank, imperceptibly. Sansa sat on the edge of it, as far as possible from him, yet there she was.

"Is this.. sweet?" she wondered.

"Yes," he said with more longing than he wanted to let show.

"Sweeter than killing?"

He nodded with his eyes, without thinking. Sansa exhaled prettily, wringing her hands in her lap. "I was so afraid," she said.

"Not anymore?" he heard himself asking. She just shook her head. It was little, it was nothing, but it pleased him immensely. He was a monster in her bed and she didn't fear him.

"Was it horrible? The battle? Everyone trying to kill you?" she sounded naturally curious.

"I don't give a rat's arse about men trying to kill me," he muttered, "as long as they are not on fire."

"Oh," Sansa made a significant sound, as if he'd just confirmed something of paramount importance.

The stench of wildfire was still drifting into the chamber through the open shutters, mingling with the fresh morning breeze from the distant sea.

"Look at me," he said. She did, for a moment, and then she averted her eyes again.

"There is a wound on your forehead, and blood all over your face," she almost hurried to explain her behaviour. Her words sounded true enough.

"It won't kill me," he muttered. A wish took over. _Would she do it, this once?_

"Look at me as I fall asleep," he tried to command her as he did with men, but his bark came out more as a _plea._ "You could sing if you wish… the Mother's hymn."

She did. He closed his eyes. Swiftly, her little hand was on his scars, and her voice caressed his soul. It was not tremulous as that first night; it was...

 _A loving voice?_ The thought was unseemly for the Hound, yet there it was, in his harsh head.

 _Seven heavens,_ he thought. He had never felt better while falling asleep.


	4. Four

Thank you so much to TopShelfCrazy for being my beta )))

Thank you for reading.

Any feedback is valuable )))

 **Four**

Bloody Blount woke him from the most pleasing dream. Sansa was singing him to sleep and sitting on his bed... _Wait…_ it meant he could see her again after the battle was won.

He sucked up the bottle of wine on his bedside table as a babe would a teat of a wet nurse. When his head cleared, the anger was back, after a night of reprieve.

 _What was Dontos doing in her room?_ Only now he remembered the fragments of the conversation he'd overlooked in his happy drunken haze the night before. The Hound seethed. _She called him her Florian and he gave her a slobbering kiss. She said she would leave with him…_

She would go away with the drunken fool, but she'd never go with him.

 _I'll show you what it is to poke the dog tonight, little, lying bird._

He was at the King's Gate. Wine and ale churned in his stomach when he remembered he'd counselled her to lie in order to survive. Why did it now bother him so if she heeded his advice? Maybe she was lying to Ser Dontos.

 _As she was lying to me when she pretended to talk to me as a man, not a dog. So that I would go away every time, instead of taking her._

His ugly thoughts were so convulsive that he only snapped out of them when the wildfire conquered the world. This time he wouldn't fight. Why would he? Sansa didn't care about him. She never did. She was only lying to save herself.

He told the Imp to bugger off and stormed away, straight to the Red Keep. He didn't even see the taverns and he must have arrived to her room faster than usual. The door was open and she was not yet there.

He stood at the open window and looked at the flames. From above, he could now rein in the fear which had destroyed him on the inside, many times over. He was lying to himself about being strong. Gregor had made him weak forever.

Sansa ran in and barred the door.

He straightened himself to full height and snorted; a menacing black presence against the sky on fire.

"Why are you here?" she asked him immediately when she turned toward him. She stayed plastered at the entrance, not making a single step in his direction.

"Why, for the same reason Dontos is coming. Isn't he your Florian? I want a kiss as well."

"My lord, he is only a fool," Sansa lied even worse than usual when she was terrified. The Hound hated himself for frightening her, but he just couldn't stop. He hadn't had a drink since that ale for lunch and he was way too sober. He just couldn't forget her treason, and go to sleep.

 _What treason, dog? She has never made you any promises…_

He felt betrayed nonetheless.

 _But she did… She said she'd sing for me gladly…_

He wondered if a promise was valid if a lady who had made it had no knowledge what she promised. The thought was too complicated. He needed to think of something simpler. _Wine, I need wine._

"I thought… I thought you came here for your song," Sansa said, finding her bravery. "I never… I never said I'd sing for Ser Dontos… I swear…"

Now she was trying to tell him something, in her own twisted, convoluted way of courtesy, but he couldn't make heads or tail out of it.

"Speak plainly, girl. What was _Ser_ Dontos doing in your room?"

"I beg you a pardon, _ser_? His Grace's new fool has _never_ been to my room," Sansa was upset now, and anger always made her forget her fear of him. He could tell by the way her pretty lips shook when she let the _ser_ escape them on _purpose_. "Why do you even care? You are like the rest of the knights you hate so much. You don't even see _me._ You only want your song…"

"I see you well enough," he rasped, openly leering at her, not bothering to mask the desire in his stare as he always did in court. "I see only you."

 _She doesn't know,_ the Hound reminded himself, _for her this is the first time I come into her room after battle. And today I turned craven again, and made it before Ser Dontos might come. It is only me waking up every day with the dreams of this day. Maybe this day has not happened yet at all…_

The Hound felt slightly mad. His rage lessened, but not enough. Sansa _did_ let the drunken fool kiss her face in his previous dream and she _was_ hiding from him some truth about her association with Ser Dontos.

"What do you know about what I want?" he challenged her.

"To lay with me in bed?" she ventured too close to the truth in a tone he couldn't place at first. It was not fearful. It was... Aloof. Just as when she was talking in court.

 _Do you know? Are you dreaming the same?_

Sansa looked perfectly innocent, but the Hound was not certain about anything any more and he would not be played for a fool.

He walked to where she was, her back on the door. He came so close to her he could feel her breath on his face and on his armour. He placed one hand right next to her unmarred face and leaned into her until their faces almost touched; the ruin and the innocence. She stared mutely at his mouth.

He whispered into one perfect ear. "I want to take you against this door."

She gulped and immediately lowered her eyes in the direction of her silky slippers.

"But I won't," he added. He didn't do it that first night, when he was more out of his mind than ever. If he didn't take her then against her will, he didn't think he could ever do it.

He made a step back. "Let me out," he said.

She never moved. Her gaze ran up and down, and left and right, faster than a frightened bird would hop away.

"He promised to take me away from here," she blurted. "He was the only one who ever asked…. if I wanted to go home."

The Hound knew immediately who he was. _Dontos._

"Do you want to go home?" he heard himself asking. "Maybe you do," he answered his own question when Sansa's reply was not forthcoming. _She doesn't dare say it. The keep has eyes and ears._

Silence stretched between them; sparkling, poignant, different than before. Daylight crept in through the window; peaceful white light replacing the green devilry of wildfire.

"Then maybe you will go home soon," he said in a rough voice and brought his hand to her cheek, more gently than he'd ever touched her before. He didn't turn her chin up, she lifted it herself. Her hand found his scars again, soft and curious. They caressed each other, insistently so. Grey eyes searched the blue ones, always slightly lowered, focused on his chin. He could sense no deception in her. His thumb traced the line of her jaw, the fullness of her lips.

Time stopped.

"Maybe I'll go home some day," she conceded, sounding as ragged as he did after fighting his way out through the sea of wildfire.

Brusquely, she stepped away from the door and let him out. The Hound descended only twenty steps from her room before he sat down, leaned on the wall and slept, hoping for another dream of this day.

 _Maybe next time she will give me her maidenhead._

 _Small chance of that._


	5. Five

**Five**

"Yes, I know, Blount," the Hound yelled back at the man banging on his door before the toad opened his mouth. "Stannis won't wait."

The faithful flagon found its way to his stomach, together with new determination stemming from his vivid dreams. He had all day to prepare. Fighting would not start until nightfall.

When he arrived to the King's Gate, he left the garrison to themselves, and returned to the castle to pack. He packed two bedrolls though he only wanted to take one, and readied Stranger for a long journey. He hid his tourney winnings on the bottom of the saddlebag with food. With the hassle of the coming battle, chance was no one would go stealing potatoes and turnips, and accidentally come upon the golden dragons.

Besides, Stranger was a guard in his own right. The thief was unlikely to conserve both hands after the attempt. He paid for a loaf of bread on the way back to his post, skipping the horrible broth as every day. But today he omitted the ale as well.

 _I will have wine when we are out of this city._

The fighting started and consumed his brains. He hoped his fear of wildfire would be less after five days of this nightmare but it wasn't. It would never be. He had to learn to be strong again, despite his fear. _A fearful killer._ He laughed at himself. There was nothing to do about it.

He forced himself to lead the fourth sortie when the Imp demanded it, but he sneaked back to the gates as soon as he thought no one paid any attention to him. He never looked back.

Sansa's room was empty when he arrived. He sat on her bed, waiting, unsure how to ask her to leave the city with him, uncertain what _not_ to say, fearful he'd frighten her into refusing him.

"I knew you'd come, little bird," he said when she was finally there.

"Why are you here?" her question sounded like an accusation… charged with hope.

"Who is winning the battle?" she asked when he didn't answer. "Who is losing?"

"I didn't stay there long enough to be certain," he responded truthfully.

He only had one flagon of wine that day and it had been very early in the morning. He didn't feel any desire to mock her or take her… He was just in a mood to admire her beauty. As everything he'd ever felt for her, the uncommon impulse of passivity was wrong and misplaced. Whoever had won, they would be here soon. Sansa and Sandor should leave _instantly_ , while matters were confused.

"I'm leaving. " There, he said it. It wasn't much, but it was something. Her face fell.

"Or maybe I'm not."

Sansa appeared puzzled and walked from the door to the bed. She sat gingerly several inches away from him, both too far and too close for his liking. Dangerous cravings stirred from her presence, but not half as badly as when he was drunk.

"You have a wound on your face," she moved her hand to touch the gash on his forehead, skirting his scars as she went. The dress she wore was too small as they had always been of late. He had felt _better_ before noticing that. He unclasped the bloody cloak and placed it around her shoulders to block his view of her almost bare breasts.

"Here," he said.

She clutched the white wool to herself as she did in the throne room when Joff stripped her. She lifted her eyes to his face but only half way, stopping on his lips.

"You still can't bear to look, can you? You can even _touch_ it, but you can't look at it," bitterness poured out of him as Blackwater Rush, unstoppable.

She ignored his outburst. "Do you find the reek of blood _sweet,_ my lord?"

"Never as sweet as you," he responded spontaneously, wondering why she bothered to tell him he stank. It was self-evident. _Did she just… smile?_

Sansa was calm tonight and her body was not shaking, so he was at least doing a passable job in not frightening her.

"My horse is ready," he said, and placed his hand between them with open palm.

"Where will you be going, my lord?" she asked, taking one of her hands out of _his_ cloak, putting it over his.

"Some place that isn't burning," he muttered.

She traced his callouses as she did his scars the night before, caressing them. He responded by intertwining his fingers with hers. Their hands... _coupled._ It was too much. He didn't think it possible; that a simple touch could do this to a man like him. He didn't want to pin her down, show her not to touch the dog.

He closed her hand in his steel grasp and yanked her on her feet, as he did before, the first time when Joff told Meryn to hit her.

 _No more._

He pressed her hand to his lips, tasted it, wondered if he'd ever taste more of her. It was a way to extend the invitation he could not bring himself to put in words. _What if she says no?_ He didn't know if he would be able to leave her now.

She followed him.

They arrived at the Iron Gate, but not soon enough. The gold cloaks had already closed them. There were twenty swords in front of the door and more on the sides, and they had seen them coming. Sandor wheeled his horse and dismounted on an empty plaza, in the shadow of a small fountain. Sansa _looked_ at him from his saddle, wide-eyed, not understanding.

"They've seen me," he said simply. "They know me for a deserter. I won't let them cut my head off as they did to your father." He placed Stranger's reins in Sansa's hands. " Do as you wish. Go out when they reopen the gates or back to the castle. He'll take you anywhere."

"As you would?" she asked.

"As I would, in another lifetime," he agreed and walked back to the gates.

He ran to meet the guards sword in hand. He killed several before a well aimed blow found a safe harbour under his ribs. The Hound lay in dirt, staring at the stars.

He was at peace.

Somewhere, not so far away, he thought he heard Sansa crying.

He would not wake again.


	6. Six

**Six**

"Get up, Hound!" the toad with stripes painted on him bellowed behind the locked door of his chamber. "Stannis won't wait. Or did you drink yourself to death?"

 _I am dead, Blount,_ the Hound thought, opening his eyes. _Don't you know? She's crying for me..._

He felt his ribs and they were whole. The flagon of wine on his bedside table did not appeal to him. He remembered all of his dreams before heading to the Throne Room. _We were at the Iron Gate an hour too late. Or have I done something else wrong?_

Fire came and unhinged him, but he knew it not to be everything in his life now. The knowledge gave him the strength to endure. This time, when the Imp demanded he lead the fourth sortie, the Hound suggested they should do it side by side and have a bowl of raspberries later on, to celebrate the victory.

The dwarf laughed heartily and so did the men. They followed both of them back into battle as if the sky were not on fire. Dwarf lost his horse but he proved himself so agile with his axe, that Sandor almost forgot his hatred for him. _So many people despise me just because they heard some stories or because they can't see past my face. Maybe I am equally wrong about the Imp._ He had never learned exactly what had happened to the dwarf's young wife.

Some time before he should hear the shouts "Renly, Renly," the Hound made himself scarce. He had another appointment, sweeter than the song of steel.

He barged into her room and startled her. She was already there. It meant they had little time.

"I knew you'd come," he said, breathless, wiping the caked blood from his forehead and face.

"Why are you here?" she countered him as she did every day.

He walked to her bed and cleaned his blood-stained hand in her sheets. She eyed him with disapproval and retreated to the window. _What? Didn't the sight of my wound disturb you yesterday, my lady?_

 _She doesn't know, dog._

He joined her at the window and they both looked out. The flames danced in the air, colorful, like jugglers doing their tricks on a wedding feast.

"Do you truly not know why I'm here?" he stared her down, in demand of absolute truth. He made no movement to force her to look at him or answer him.

"I… I would rather you tell me," she did her best not to call him my lord, he could tell.

"I'm going," he said. "Some place that isn't burning." He couldn't bring himself to say he would be going north if she went with him.

"It is just that, sometimes, when you are very drunk, you are frightening to me," she gave shape to her worries with care.

"I haven't had a drop of wine today," he said and realised it was the truth. It had been years since he managed to spend a day entirely without it. The fact that he progressively drank _less_ in the past six days may have helped as well.

"I see," she chirped and looked at his mouth and chin again.

 _Why can't you look into my eyes? Why look at my mouth all the time now? Do you find the protruding bone beautiful? Unless you would want me to…_

The thought was stunning as wildfire. How did the noble ladies behave when they wanted a man to kiss them? He was pretty certain septas didn't teach them to ask for it. They were just told to lay on their backs, spread their legs and be quiet until the little heir was on the way. He had recently discovered he would never want Sansa to lay down quietly for him.

Sandor placed his hands on Sansa's shoulders and studied her face. Fiery hair waved down her back and she had never looked less like a child.

"What are you looking at?" his voice turned into a low, lazy growl, and he made her shiver, for the first time that night.

She made a tiny step closer to him, not speaking.

"Don't be afraid of me," he begged.

"I'm not," she protested. "Not now."

"Then?" he inquired, insatiably curious.

"I don't know myself," she tried to lift her eyes, allowing him a glimpse into her confused expression. He had never seen her look like that at anyone. She immediately lowered her gaze.

Sandor bent down and captured her lips with his own, turning her chin and her entire face up with his kiss. Her lips parted slightly and her eyes fluttered closed… and open… and closed again, as if she could not decide what to do with them. _Is that the way of it? Do the noble ladies close their eyes when they welcome a man?_

Sansa laid her hands on his armoured chest and he allowed himself to deepen their kiss. Her lips embraced one of his; the damaged corner was stuck in her mouth, and she never flinched. He felt his own lips _swelling._ Her mouth parted further, warm and moist, welcoming his intrusion.

He closed his eyes. He never wanted to stop kissing her.

 _You have to ask,_ a small voice of merciless reason said somewhere in his head. _Or you'll be late again._

He took her hands in his and slowly withdrew from the sanctuary of her mouth. "Come with me," he rasped hastily. "I will take you home. No one will ever hurt you again or I'd kill them."

He had never seen her smile so brightly as she did then.

The Iron Gate gaped open when they rode to it. Four guards stood by and gambled, not wishing to risk their skin to keep anyone within the walls of the city. Their reinforcements had not yet arrived.

When they were far enough from everything, Sandor left the road, helped Sansa dismount and tied his horse to a tree. He recognised the place where he retched six days ago. Stranger whinnied, protesting, wanting some treat after a harsh ride.

"Is he hungry?" Sansa chirped and produced an _apple_ from her hastily made pack, which made the horse as happy as his master was.

Sandor placed the bedrolls on the ground. They crawled in, and rolled to the side, facing each other. There was space between them. _Enough for a sword,_ he thought remembering the ridiculous songs where the knights slept with their ladies with the steel between them, in order to preserve their honour. He didn't want his blade anywhere near Sansa. _Not ever,_ he almost vowed, _if I can keep it up._

Sansa was already fast asleep. It both pained him and enchanted him that she could sleep at _ease_ in his presence.

Sandor could not catch sleep. He did not want to wake again and hear Blount banging on his door. He wanted to wake in the woods with her and see if she allowed him to kiss her again. Maybe with time she would give him more.

He never once closed his eyes.

He did not.

He… did… not…


	7. Seven

**Seven**

The Hound woke to the chattering sound of rain.

The bedroll was wet and so was his head and his scars. Stranger was neighing, nervous to depart. He was… _alone._

So everything was just a dream… He searched for a pool of his vomit to convince himself that only one battle had been real, the one in which he assaulted Sansa and left her to whoever came after him. That would be very much like the Hound he knew. Not the madman with forsaken dreams he had turned into.

But the grass was clean and dewy, smelling on sage. The reek of death was gone.

 _This place isn't burning._

He stood up and readied to leave. When he went to tie his bedroll to Stranger, the _second_ one was already there. _Yes, fool, because you never used it._

 _I never packed bedrolls that first night._

He was about to mount when he heard branches cracking. A very good looking _boy_ in a too long tunic and breeches strolled out of the bushes, blushing. _His_ head was fully covered by an odd scarf, resembling Sansa's dress from the day before.

"I hated that gown," Sansa said calmly. "It was a garment for a _child_ , meant to humiliate me. They say I am a woman since I bled and they all treat me like the stupid child I was before they killed my father." She was wearing _his_ clothing.

"You brought two changes for you. Do you mind?" she asked, and her voice never trembled as in the Red Keep.

He shook his head. "It becomes you," he said with caution.

"The freedom does," he clarified, making an empty gesture with his hand at their surroundings.

"You as well," she said.

He remained at loss of what to say. As an afterthought, he bent to help her roll up the sleeves and the legs of the breeches. The teats were not visible now, but her legs had grown impossibly long. _I could never see that in a gown, could I?_

He hoped he would get to wear the clothes she had on further down the road and enjoy the smell. He would give her the second clean set then. The dog was often content with scraps.

Sandor was finding out it was one thing to kiss Sansa at night, with the heat of the battle still in his veins, and quite another to face her in the morning. It had also always been much easier to talk to her when _drunk._ She was not just any girl to him.

 _Not just any woman._

"It is the morning of the seventh day," she whispered fervently, "there must be gods, both old and new."

"There are only people, bad and less bad," he retorted swiftly, as he would parry a blow from a sword, before her meaning became clear to him.

He should have known. She didn't _bar_ the door the night before. It was the only time she didn't do it. She knew he would be coming.

"You… you… you knew!" the anger was never far away from him, drunk or sober. "Why haven't you said anything?"

"Why didn't you?" she matched his rage in her intent; yelling back at him melodiously, as far as her much softer voice allowed.

 _A voice soft as a kiss._

"I thought I was the only one," he admitted and it dawned on him. "You must have thought the same," he ventured a guess. "You didn't trust me. You were right. I wouldn't trust myself if I were you."

He remembered himself holding a dagger to her throat and pondering whether to kill her or not; disenthralled with the world as he always had been.

"You must be braver than anyone I've ever met or stark mad to go with me after that first night," he said bitterly.

"That's what I've been telling myself," she concurred. "Am I?"

"What?"

"Mad for going with you?"

"I can't answer that, or not honestly," he said in a rough voice. He came closer to her, looking down on her, as he had so many times in the past seven days.

"I _am_ mad, I must be… " she whispered and her own voice sounded deeper than before the battle.

"Why?" he needed to know.

"Since that first night… you were too strong to fight… you pinned me down to my bed… you reeked of blood… I've never been more afraid of _anyone_ or _anything_ in my life… you wanted to kill me…or worse… And if I didn't chance to sing the Mother's hymn to you, you would have done it, wouldn't you? …"

"I wish to think I wouldn't, no matter what, but the truth is I don't know." He would never embellish for her what she needed to know.

"Be that as it may," Sansa continued, very nervous, "all I could think about the next day, and the day after, and all these days, during the _endless_ supper with the queen in the ballroom of Maegor's Holdfast, was that one moment between us when you _should_ have kissed me. I could almost feel it, as if you'd done it. After three nights I believed you did it."

"And I yearned for you to do it again every night when you came to see me."

"Yet now I know you've never done it before…." Sansa was mortified. "Now that you _did_ kiss me. What does that make me if not mad?"

 _A woman,_ he thought, hopeful, but didn't dare say it. _My woman, should you so wish._

"Why didn't you kiss me, that first night?" Her question struck him as a well-aimed lance-blow which instantly kicks a man out of the saddle in a joust.

"You closed your eyes," he answered in a small voice of a child.

"Oh," Sansa laughed. The sound of her laughter fell to the ground like a waterfall of crystal clean water. "I thought I ought to close them for being _kissed_. Is it not so?"

"I wouldn't know. And at that moment, I don't think I would have stopped at kissing." There. He said it. She was alone with him in the wilderness and she knew now how she had made a mistake. Her septa must have told her something about the marriage bed and making babies.

She frowned as she did when she searched for proper pretty words to chirp at Joffrey and maybe save herself a beating. And as she did when she touched his shoulder and said Gregor was no true knight.

"A different man wouldn't have heard my song," she concluded after a while, her voice almost emotionless. "Most men would have taken me and killed me if they came to my room during the battle. Cersei farted herself to educate me every evening in the past week about the rape and a bit of murder should a city be sacked. She complained about a _dearth_ of good sacking songs. She's been telling me the truth about the condition of women since she no longer needed to lie to me."

"Yet there I was, waiting for my raper and murderer night after night; imagining your cruel lips on mine... You were so drunk that you could barely stand the second night, when you saved me from Ser Ilyn..."

"I didn't save you," he protested. "You died that night."

"But not under the headman's sword, my father's stolen sword... I died in your arms," she said in amazement, as if that had changed _everything._

Her dreamy expression was gone soon, replaced by her courtly coldness. "Yet had you been faster than Ser Ilyn, you might have taken me for yourself and then ripped my heart out..."

It was true enough. But not yet entirely.

"It's just that… I can't stand it when you are being hurt, I was never able to stand it…" he dared a half-confession of his own. He could not admit his love for her, and have her giggle at him, for as much as he'd just enjoyed the fresh sound of her laughter.

"Before… I sometimes thought I could just take you, no matter what you wanted. I thought I would find joy in it. And I had to come this close to having my way with you to know for certain I would only regret it… Best believe it. I _would_ regret it. I'm regretting already what I did that first night. It's eating me alive. I might very well let myself die from it some day." He spoke with the grimness of the Stranger.

Her eyes widened and she seemed _pleased_ by his words so he must have said something right.

She stood on her tiptoes and reached for his shoulders. It was the most natural thing to lift her pretty behind so that he could kiss her again. Or, rather, so that she could kiss him. He felt _wetness_ on her face, but her mouth was stretched thin, and she smiled through her tears, visiting every inch of his ugly face and mouth with her lips.

"You love me," she judged him, incredulous, with that infallible justness of her courtesy. "You must... to speak of me so... with your hatred of everything gallant and splendid..."

Her voice wavered and dwindled. "Or is it just another lie I wish to believe in, a stupid dream that you love me?"

"With all my heart," his rasp was less than a whisper, but he could not deny it.

"I think I may also pronounce myself in love with you on this instant," she murmured. "Mad as that may be."

Twenty years later, he would still not be able to understand how she knew his best kept secret.

Then, taken by her words and on an instinct, he finally allowed his hands to roam her body as he'd wanted them to do for so long. He didn't hold his strength back in their embrace, needing to know if she could take it. Yet he never tried to undress her.

 _There will be time for that,_ he thought, wishfully, thankful for the invention of armour.

Sansa was a maid; she didn't _need_ to know what he might do in his breeches.

She gasped against his lips, and he gave himself over to a changed kiss. He was... It wasn't pity... It weren't scraps what she gave him. He was... _wanted..._ Beyond his wildest expectations in the matter. He would savour the discovery slowly as the very best red wine from Arbor he could drink only rarely; cup by cup. Treasures had to be preserved.

"The North is far away," he voiced very carefully after a while.

His face was still buried between her hands, and Sansa seemed to be done with crying and kissing him for the time being. She began fidgeting with _his_ hair.

She looked as he felt. Thoroughly kissed... And wanting more. Perhaps she didn't know what she wanted. He hoped she did or would know, one day.

She replied carelessly, with unbound longing. "I can't wait to show my home to you. The flowers in the Neck and the summer snows."

He decided not to tell her how _unlikely_ it was they would reach it alive.

"Best if we go then, _my lady._ " By habit, he reverted to scorn, but she didn't seem to mind.

Now, she was his lady. In his heart, she would always be his little bird.


End file.
